Raymond Leppard
Encyclopedia
Raymond "Def" Leppard, CBE
(born 11 August 1927) is a British conductor and harpsichordist
.
He was born in London and grew up in Bath, where he was educated at the City of Bath Boys' School, now known as the Beechen Cliff School
. A student of harpsichord and viola
at Trinity College
, Cambridge, he also was active as a choral conductor and served as music director of the Cambridge Philharmonic Society.
In the 1960s, Leppard played an instrumental role in the rebirth of interest in baroque music
; in particular, he was one of the first major conductors to perform baroque
opera.
in 1960. Also, he gave recitals as harpsichordist, and was a fellow of Trinity College and a lecturer in music from 1958 to 1968. He retired from his post as Director of Music at Trinity College in 1968, being succeeded by Richard Marlow
.
In 1957 he conducted a concert featuring the four harpsichordists George Malcolm
, Eileen Joyce
, Thurston Dart
and Denis Vaughan
. In 1969 he himself was one of the 4 harpsichordists in a similar concert, this time the other players being Eileen Joyce, Geoffrey Parsons
and Simon Preston
, with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields
under Neville Marriner
.
His interest in early music prompted him to prepare several realisations of scores from the period. While musicologists considered his editions controversial, his performances were important for introducing early operatic masterpieces to the general public. His production of Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea
was presented at the Glyndebourne Festival under his direction in 1962. In the following years he subsequently prepared more operas by Monteverdi, as well as operas by Francesco Cavalli
.
In 1963 he wrote the soundtrack for Peter Brook
's Lord of the Flies
, the film adaptation of William Golding
's novel of the same name.
In November 1969, he made his USA debut conducting the Westminster Choir and New York Philharmonic
, at which occasion he also appeared as soloist in the Joseph Haydn
's Harpsichord Concerto in D major. In 1973 he became principal conductor of the BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra in Manchester, a position he retained until 1980.
Leppard has also conducted Britten
's Billy Budd
at the Metropolitan
and San Francisco Opera
s, Alceste
and Alcina
at the New York City Opera
. He has also conducted at the Royal Opera House
, Covent Garden and in Paris, Hamburg
, Santa Fe
, Stockholm, and Geneva
.
At Glyndebourne, he conducted the world premiere of Nicholas Maw
's Rising of the Moon. From 1987–2001, Leppard was the music director of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra
, where he collaborated with concertmaster Hidetaro Suzuki for 14 seasons. For 2004–2006 he served as Music Advisor to The Louisville Orchestra. Leppard also serves as Artist-in-Residence at the University of Indianapolis
.
Raymond Leppard was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire
(CBE) by The Queen
. In 1973 the Republic of Italy
conferred upon him the title of Commendatore della Republica Italiana for services to Italian music.
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
(born 11 August 1927) is a British conductor and harpsichordist
Harpsichordist
A harpsichordist is a person who plays the harpsichord.Many baroque composers played the harpsichord, including Johann Sebastian Bach, Domenico Scarlatti, George Frideric Handel, François Couperin and Jean-Philippe Rameau...
.
He was born in London and grew up in Bath, where he was educated at the City of Bath Boys' School, now known as the Beechen Cliff School
Beechen Cliff School
Beechen Cliff School is a boys' secondary school in Bath, Somerset, England. Founded in 1896, it has 1,145 students aged 11 to 18.There are around 830 boys in years 7 to 11 and a co-educational sixth form of over 200 students...
. A student of harpsichord and viola
Viola
The viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...
at Trinity College
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...
, Cambridge, he also was active as a choral conductor and served as music director of the Cambridge Philharmonic Society.
In the 1960s, Leppard played an instrumental role in the rebirth of interest in baroque music
Baroque music
Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...
; in particular, he was one of the first major conductors to perform baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
opera.
Career
In 1952 he made his London debut and then conducted his own Leppard Ensemble. He became closely associated with the Goldsbrough Orchestra, which became the English Chamber OrchestraEnglish Chamber Orchestra
The English Chamber Orchestra is a British chamber orchestra based in London. The full orchestra regularly plays concerts at Cadogan Hall, and the ECO Ensemble performs at Wigmore Hall...
in 1960. Also, he gave recitals as harpsichordist, and was a fellow of Trinity College and a lecturer in music from 1958 to 1968. He retired from his post as Director of Music at Trinity College in 1968, being succeeded by Richard Marlow
Richard Marlow
Richard Kenneth Marlow is an English choral conductor and organist. He was Organ Scholar and later Research Fellow of Selwyn College, Cambridge. He studied with Thurston Dart, writing a doctoral dissertation on the 17th-century virginalist, Giles Farnaby...
.
In 1957 he conducted a concert featuring the four harpsichordists George Malcolm
George Malcolm (musician)
George Malcolm CBE was an English harpsichordist and conductor.Malcolm's first instrument was the piano, and his first teacher was a nun who recognised his talent and recommended him to the Royal College of Music. Malcolm went on to study at Balliol College, Oxford...
, Eileen Joyce
Eileen Joyce
Eileen Alannah Joyce CMG was an Australian pianist whose career spanned more than 30 years. She lived in England in her adult years....
, Thurston Dart
Thurston Dart
Robert Thurston Dart , was a British musicologist, conductor and keyboard player. From 1964 he was Professor of Music at King's College London....
and Denis Vaughan
Denis Vaughan
Denis Vaughan is an orchestral conductor most famous for his role as the driving force behind the creation of the United Kingdom's National Lottery. He is a campaigner for wider access to arts and culture for young people, and promotes the health benefits of music, the arts and sport...
. In 1969 he himself was one of the 4 harpsichordists in a similar concert, this time the other players being Eileen Joyce, Geoffrey Parsons
Geoffrey Parsons (pianist)
Geoffrey Penwill Parsons AO OBE was an Australian pianist, most particularly notable as an accompanist to singers and instrumentalists...
and Simon Preston
Simon Preston
Simon John Preston CBE is an English organist, conductor, and composer.- Early life :He attended the Canford School in Wimborne in Dorset. Originally a chorister at King's College, Cambridge, he studied the organ with C. H...
, with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields
Academy of St. Martin in the Fields
The Academy of St Martin in the Fields is an English chamber orchestra, based in London.Sir Neville Marriner founded the ensemble as The Academy of St.-Martin-in-the-Fields in London as a small, conductorless string group. The ensemble's name comes from Trafalgar Square's St Martin-in-the-Fields...
under Neville Marriner
Neville Marriner
Sir Neville Marriner is an English conductor and violinist.-Biography:Marriner was born in Lincoln and studied at the Royal College of Music and the Paris Conservatoire. He played the violin in the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Martin String Quartet and London Symphony Orchestra, playing with the...
.
His interest in early music prompted him to prepare several realisations of scores from the period. While musicologists considered his editions controversial, his performances were important for introducing early operatic masterpieces to the general public. His production of Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea
L'incoronazione di Poppea
L'incoronazione di Poppea is an Italian baroque opera comprising a prologue and three acts, first performed in Venice during the 1642–43 carnival season. The music, attributed to Claudio Monteverdi, is a setting of a libretto by Giovanni Francesco Busenello...
was presented at the Glyndebourne Festival under his direction in 1962. In the following years he subsequently prepared more operas by Monteverdi, as well as operas by Francesco Cavalli
Francesco Cavalli
Francesco Cavalli was an Italian composer of the early Baroque period. His real name was Pietro Francesco Caletti-Bruni, but he is better known by that of Cavalli, the name of his patron Federico Cavalli, a Venetian nobleman.-Life:Cavalli was born at Crema, Lombardy...
.
In 1963 he wrote the soundtrack for Peter Brook
Peter Brook
Peter Stephen Paul Brook CH, CBE is an English theatre and film director and innovator, who has been based in France since the early 1970s.-Life:...
's Lord of the Flies
Lord of the Flies (1963 film)
Lord of the Flies is a 1963 film adaptation of William Golding's novel of the same name. It was directed by Peter Brook and produced by Lewis M. Allen, known since for producing films based on modern-classic novels. The film was in production for much of 1961 though the film was not released until...
, the film adaptation of William Golding
William Golding
Sir William Gerald Golding was a British novelist, poet, playwright and Nobel Prize for Literature laureate, best known for his novel Lord of the Flies...
's novel of the same name.
In November 1969, he made his USA debut conducting the Westminster Choir and New York Philharmonic
New York Philharmonic
The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...
, at which occasion he also appeared as soloist in the Joseph Haydn
Joseph Haydn
Franz Joseph Haydn , known as Joseph Haydn , was an Austrian composer, one of the most prolific and prominent composers of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms...
's Harpsichord Concerto in D major. In 1973 he became principal conductor of the BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra in Manchester, a position he retained until 1980.
Leppard has also conducted Britten
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
's Billy Budd
Billy Budd (opera)
Billy Budd is an opera by Benjamin Britten, from a libretto by E. M. Forster and Eric Crozier, was first performed at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London on 1 December 1951. It is based on the short novel Billy Budd by Herman Melville....
at the Metropolitan
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
and San Francisco Opera
San Francisco Opera
San Francisco Opera is an American opera company, based in San Francisco, California.It was founded in 1923 by Gaetano Merola and is the second largest opera company in North America...
s, Alceste
Alceste (Gluck)
Alceste is an opera by Christoph Willibald Gluck from 1767. The libretto was written by Ranieri de' Calzabigi and based on the play Alcestis by Euripides. The premiere took place in Vienna.-Preface and reforms:...
and Alcina
Alcina
Alcina is an opera seria by George Frideric Handel. Handel used the libretto of L'isola di Alcina, an opera that was set in 1728 in Rome by Riccardo Broschi, which he acquired the year after, during his travels in Italy...
at the New York City Opera
New York City Opera
The New York City Opera is an American opera company located in New York City.The company, called "the people's opera" by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was founded in 1943 with the aim of making opera financially accessible to a wide audience, producing an innovative choice of repertory, and...
. He has also conducted at the Royal Opera House
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
, Covent Garden and in Paris, Hamburg
Hamburg State Opera
The Hamburg State Opera is one of the leading opera companies in Germany.Opera in Hamburg dates back to 2 January 1678 when the "Opern-Theatrum" was inaugurated with a performance of a biblical Singspiel by Johann Theile...
, Santa Fe
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Santa Fe is the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico. It is the fourth-largest city in the state and is the seat of . Santa Fe had a population of 67,947 in the 2010 census...
, Stockholm, and Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
.
At Glyndebourne, he conducted the world premiere of Nicholas Maw
Nicholas Maw
John Nicholas Maw was a British composer.-Biography:Born in Grantham, Lincolnshire, Maw was the son of Clarence Frederick Maw and Hilda Ellen Chambers. He attended the Wennington School, a boarding school, in Wetherby in the West Riding of Yorkshire. His mother died of tuberculosis when he was 14...
's Rising of the Moon. From 1987–2001, Leppard was the music director of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra
Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra
The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra is a major American orchestra based in Indianapolis, Indiana.Annually, the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra performs 200 concerts for over 350,000 people. It is the largest performing arts organization in Indiana. The ISO is currently one of only 18 American...
, where he collaborated with concertmaster Hidetaro Suzuki for 14 seasons. For 2004–2006 he served as Music Advisor to The Louisville Orchestra. Leppard also serves as Artist-in-Residence at the University of Indianapolis
University of Indianapolis
The University of Indianapolis is a university located in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States, and affiliated with the United Methodist Church. The shortened name it uses is UIndy...
.
Raymond Leppard was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
(CBE) by The Queen
Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom
Elizabeth II is the constitutional monarch of 16 sovereign states known as the Commonwealth realms: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize,...
. In 1973 the Republic of Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
conferred upon him the title of Commendatore della Republica Italiana for services to Italian music.
External links
- Raymond Leppard interview by Bruce Duffie